Tag: health

Life is fleeting. I, like most other people, very rarely face up to this fact. Every now and then though something makes you realise how fragile life really is. When that happens you need to use that emotion to fuel your own grip on life. Make the most of what you have got, now while you have the chance…

After a bit of recent reflection, I realised that to help me get over the passing of Dad I focussed all of my efforts on losing weight. I looked at myself and felt that I needed to do something about my growing waistline.

Instead of messing about for a couple of weeks, which is what normally happens when I half-heartedly try a new diet, I outlayed some money and signed up for three months on the Diet Chef diet. Alongside the diet I have really upped my activity levels by walking everywhere. This includes walking Shirley to work most days before returning to where I work. That means I tend to cover at least 5 or 6 miles almost every day. Together this has worked wonders and I’ve lost 2½st (35lbs) so far with about 3 or 4 weeks to go!

We have had some minor successes at growing our own vegetables in our rather small back garden. Last year we tried growing courgettes, spring onions, lettuces, sweetcorn, parsnips, carrots, broccoli and potatoes along with some herbs, amongst other things.

Most worked out quite well, except for the broccoli for some reason. There were some restrictions in our small garden though as the whole area was paved over a few years ago. This meant that everything has to be grown in pots and a single raised bed. The carrots and parsnips didn’t really have the depth they required and so turned out a bit small but they were still nice.

There’s something really rewarding about picking, cooking and eating something that you have grown yourself.

So in about August last year Shirley put our names down for an allotment. There was a waiting list so we weren’t expecting to hear back for some time…

Then in January we got a phone call offering us a plot at Turners Allotments, which is within easy walking distance for us. We jumped at the chance and are now the proud holders of our own allotment.

Recently I have been trying out a very restrictive diet to help Shirley test for possible food intolerances. It started off very hard as the choice of foods was extremely limited…

For two weeks we stuck to lamb or turkey with carrots, broccoli, parsnips, sweet potato, courgettes or cauliflower. Luckily fresh herbs were allowed so at least there was a bit of variation of flavour.

Rice was allowed in pretty much any form so Rice Krispies for breakfast with rice milk, rice cakes for lunch with a slice of turkey and so on. Sunflower oil and spreads allowed for some frying and with the addition of some rice flour even gave the option of some baking.

Along with this we were allowed only a few types of fruit, I stuck mainly to pineapple, peaches and bananas. Drinks were also restricted to camomile or redbush tea, no coffee or ordinary tea, water and fruit juice, but only from the fruits allowed so cranberry juice and the occasional pineapple juice.

My last Monthly Review was back in March. I explained that I was going to try writing less frequent reviews in the hope of tackling some of the larger items on my list of Yearly Goals.

So now we’ve reached the mid way point in the year it’s time to sit down and work out how I’m doing so far. I’m going to go through each point in turn and update my progress on each one. This post got a bit too big to put out all in one go so I have decided to split it into 2 posts.

This first part covers the first three sections, Friends & Family, Business and Health & Fitness. Then on Tuesday I am going to post the rest.

I know this is a bit of a break from the usual Friday but I have decided to try and change my posting day to a Tuesday instead from now on. Fridays are always a little bit busy, making sure everything is wrapped up before the weekend so I thought I would try something new.